More high school diplomas aren’t translating to higher achievement

Metro Nashville, the state of Tennessee and the nation as a whole have figured out how to get more kids through high school with diplomas in hand.

That will be on display next month at commencement ceremonies here and across the country.

But does that feat hold as much meaning when high school seniors aren’t demonstrating any more mastery than their predecessors?

In the high-stakes race to turn around public high schools, two important objectives don’t appear to have much correlation — at least not yet, anyway.

There’s the goal of eradicating so-called dropout factory schools that dot urban school districts — places where students, many of them low-income, are just as likely to leave before their junior year as to graduate.

On this front, there have been resounding success stories at all levels:

• In Metro, school district officials have watched the graduation rate climb to 76.6 percent last year, up from 58.2 percent in 2004. (The figure had spiked to 83 percent before diploma requirements for English language learners and students with disabilities changed.)

• In Tennessee, the graduation rate has jumped from 59.6 percent in 2002 to 86.3 percent now, with a new report released in April predicting a 90 percent mark by 2020.

• Across the nation, graduation rates have hit 80 percent for the first time. That’s bolstered by dramatic rises in minority graduates, including African-American and Hispanic students. Over the past decade, 1.7 million more people graduated rather than dropped out.

But more diplomas aren’t translating to higher academic achievement — arguably, the more important end.

That has proved the tougher needle to move.

As a latest example, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the “nation’s report card,” found stagnant growth for 12th-grade students nationally. And near the bottom of its list — second to last, above only West Virginia for reading and math — is Tennessee.

Only 17 percent of last year’s 12th-grade students in Tennessee reached the proficient level in math, while 31 percent reached that level in reading.

“You can’t just graduate kids from high school,” Tennessee Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman said. “You have to graduate them with the skills to be able to succeed. At least, as of last year’s senior class, too many Tennessee kids were leaving school without the skills they needed.”

Still, he called Tennessee’s decade-plus run of graduating more and more kids “critically important” in its own right.

Graduating high school, after all, has been proven to increase earnings, improve employment prospects and reduce incarceration rates.

Bridgeland doesn’t believe this is the product of simply shuffling kids through the system. Instead, he said, high school today is more demanding and rigorous, pointing to higher standards (including in Tennessee), an uptick in Advanced Placement course participation and dual enrollment.